You are a supply chain management supervisor for True Colors, a fictional family run home improvement and house painting company based out of Everett, Washington.

The owner, Ned Payne, is an old friend of your family and hired you last year. When Mr. Payne expressed a need for extra help to deal with anticipated increased summer demand, you recruited Phoebe, a business school classmate of yours with whom you have worked on several group projects as a paid supply chain intern. You recommended Phoebe for her willingness to go above and beyond her fair share of work and her empathetic nature. As part of your increased duties as supervisor, Mr. Payne has also tasked you with organizing an employee wellness program and given you a yearly budget of $10,000 to design and implement it. Mr. Payne noticed many of his employees seem more stressed and distracted than usual, and he wants the most effective wellness program for this budget in order to reduce pandemic-related presenteeism within the company.

True Colors currently has 6 paid employees, including you and Phoebe, though you plan to hire more summer help in a few months to handle anticipated increase in summer demand due to the pandemic-based home improvement boom. One of the other employees is Mr. Payne?s daughter, the general manager and your direct boss, Tara Payne. Tara is currently going through a very ugly and expensive divorce and child custody battle. To save on childcare, Tara often brings her two year old son Brad to work in order to keep an eye on him in his playpen while she takes and fulfills orders. Mr. Payne and the rest of the office staff often give him toys to keep Brad occupied and quiet. Your office space is an open floor plan so that all employees can see and hear each other at all times.

One morning, Brad came into your office with his latest new toy from Mr. Payne: an action figure that makes gunshot sounds. Brad began to play the sounds constantly throughout the morning, which irritated many in the office but most of all Phoebe. After an hour of gunshot sounds, Phoebe screamed several swear words, snatched the toy away from Brad, and shouted, ?Stop it!?. In response, Brad threw a screaming tantrum and Tara yelled at Phoebe to leave her son alone. ?What is wrong with you, swearing at a baby?? Tara demanded. ?You need therapy, you psycho!? Tara gave the toy back to Brad, upon which he calmed down and began to make the gunshot sounds again.

Phoebe?s productivity plummeted the rest of the day. She became irritable and took longer than usual breaks. By early afternoon, Tara issued Phoebe a written disciplinary warning for yelling at her son earlier and missing an important order call when she went overtime on her lunch break.

Concerned, you asked Phoebe what was wrong. Phoebe told you that she is a survivor of severe domestic violence and that Brad?s gunshot sounds were triggering her PTSD. She is now highly concerned that Tara?s disciplinary letter in her employee file will threaten her current position and ability to get a job in the future. She is afraid now to tell Tara the nature of her illness due to Tara?s earlier comment about her needing therapy. ?I go to therapy,? she confessed. When you tried to talk about Phoebe?s diagnosis to Tara, she dismissed you, saying, ?Don?t even get me started on that psycho. As soon as I can replace her, she?s out.?

As Phoebe?s friend, you agreed to try to help her regain her status in the company. Because you have a longstanding positive relationship with Mr. Payne, and because he expects a written update on your employee wellness plan, you promised Phoebe that you will talk to Mr. Payne to resolve the issue and explain Phoebe?s need for accommodation. Write a memo to Mr. Payne. In this memo, address Phoebe’s need for accommodations, ask him to rescind Tara?s written disciplinary warning to Phoebe, and explain your long term employee wellness plan. Make sure that your suggestions are reasonably within the $10,000 annual budget he gave you.

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Hint: you might want to have some suggestions in list/bullet point format to make the workplace more inclusive and find ways to be part of the solution. It’s better to proactively transform company culture than reactively deal with a lawsuit.

Sample Letters of Reprimand